The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemunde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile EraWINNER OF THE DEXTER PRIZE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY Launched by the Third Reich in late 1944, the first ballistic missile, the V-2, fell on London, Paris, and Antwerp after covering nearly two hundred miles in five minutes. It was a stunning achievement, one that heralded a new age of ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles. Michael J. Neufeld gives the first comprehensive and accurate account of the story behind one of the greatest engineering feats of World War II. At a time when rockets were minor battlefield weapons, Germany ushered in a new form of warfare that would bequeath a long legacy of terror to the Cold War, as well as the means to go into space. Both the US and USSR's rocket programs had their origins in the Nazi state. |
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A-4 production aerodynamic Air Ministry aircraft Aktennotiz anti-aircraft missile Armaments Ministry Army Ordnance Army rocket program Army's Arthur Rudolph artillery BA/MA ballistic missile Becker Benecke and Quick Berlin Brauchitsch camp chief command construction Degenkolb documents Domberger Dornberger Dornberger's early emünde facility factory Fromm Führer German Göring Greifswalder Oie gyros Hermann Heylandt Himmler Hitler Hölsken Horstig Huzel Kammler kilometers Klaus Riedel Kummersdorf labor later launch leadership Leeb liquid-fuel rocket Luftwaffe ment military Mittelwerk NASM Nazi Nebel Oberth Office Ordnance's Ordway and Sharpe Peen Peenemünde Peenemünde-East Peenemünde's priority prisoners problems Production Plant Prüf 11 raid Raketenflugplatz Reichsführer-SS Riedel rocket engine rocket group Rocket Team rocketry Rudolph Schubert chronicle spaceflight Speer SRCH staff Stegmaier Steinhoff tanks technical Test Stand VII test stands Thiel Third Reich tion Todt V-Waffen vehicle Vortragsnotiz Walter Riedel Wasserfall weapon Wernher von Braun WVB Papers Zanssen